The present invention relates to a tracking system which when interrogated automatically reports data corresponding to the location of an unknown respondent. At the present time there is not any practical system which permits one to find the location of an article stolen or high jacked such as an automobile, truck, van, boat airplane or any other inanimate object which might have been either stolen or accidentally misplaced.
In todays large cities a car can be stolen and dismembered by professional car thieves in such a short length of time that even though the owner and the police are aware that the vehicle has vanished efforts to recover such a stolen vehicle are almost futile because the thieves quickly hide the vehicle and rapidly dismember it before a proper search effort can be organized. In addition such a search at best is difficult because of the vast available hiding places thieves might take advantages of for their illegal acts.
Similar problems exist for other types of vehicles whether they be ship, aircraft, or land travelling in nature, and whether the motive for stealing or hijacking be for capturing the vehicle it self or the cargo contained there within. At best this situation is disconcerting, and in want of an improvement and to this end the present invention offers a solution for quickly locating and tracking a missing vehicle without the thieves even being aware that they have been located.
It is noted that numerous devices and systems have been provided in prior art that are adapted to locate or implement an alarm warning in various situations. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,101,873, 4,187,497 and 4,247,846 all are illustrative of such prior art. While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described.